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Curry of Mutton

A stew of mutton pieces simmered in a spiced butter and flour sauce with curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curry of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. Fry the onion in butter until soft.

  2. Mix flour, curry powder, salt, and pepper into the onion and butter.

  3. Gradually stir in the stock.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the mutton pieces and simmer until tender.

  2. Serve the meat on a hot platter with rice around it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture so the sauce becomes body rather than watery.
Butter
Carries the curry powder and softens the onion, adding richness to the sauce.
Onion
Sweetens as it softens and forms the base flavor of the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid that cooks the mutton and blends with the flour into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, mutton):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, mutton. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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